New Music

Father John Misty shared a new song this week, leading up to his new album release. He performed the track, titled ‘Please Don’t Die’, at the BBC’s Biggest Weekend 2018 in Belfast. The artist’s forthcoming album God’s Favourite Customer is set to come out on the 1st of June, the follow-up to Misty’s 2017 record Pure Comedy.

Drake’s rumoured new album Scorpion is expected to come out sometime in the next months, but before that, the artist decided to share yet another new song, ‘I’m Upset’. Drake has already released three other singles, ‘Nice For What,’ ‘God’s Plan’ and ‘Diplomatic Immunity’, as well as ‘Duppy Freestyle’ which disses Pusha-T and Kanye West after their comments on Drake’s alleged use of ghostwriters.   

Underworld and Iggy Pop have announced a surprise collaboration, one that was apparently recorded “during an afternoon tea encounter” in London. The track is called ‘Bells & Circles’ and is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music now.

James Blake’s new song ‘Don’t Miss It’ is a collaboration with Mount Kimbie’s Dom Maker, and follows Blake’s earlier collaborations with André 3000 on ‘Look Ma No Hands,’ as well as on Kendrick Lamar’s and Future’s track ‘King’s Dead’ from Black Panther soundtrack by Jay Rock. Blake’s latest one-off single, ‘If the Car Beside You Moves Ahead,’ was released in January.

Music Industry

According to the latest market analysis by Sony Music, the overall growth of the music industry will slow down in the coming years. Although the expansion of the music sector reached 8.1% in 2017, this number is expected to decline, due to falling sales of downloads and physical music. Sony predicted that digital downloads will fall even by 35% in 2018, with physical revenues also falling by 19% in the coming year.

At the same time, streaming is expected to grow by 29% and will remain the dominant source of revenue for the industry, taking up 54% of the total market ($8.2 billion).

Full details were released by Music Business Worldwide.